Recent reviews by MordredMS 鬱賢

Despite certain obvious character design choices making this game look like a pr0n game (and the countless costume mods that can turn it into one), Haydee is actually a hardcore Metroidvania-style game combining the aesthetic from Portal, a limited inventory and save system à la early Resident Evil, the third-person camera of Resident Evil 4, and the precision platforming of early Tomb Raider. It's also very tough.

Unfortunately, it isn't the Dark Souls kind of tough, but rather the NES-era kind of tough, where layer upon layer of bollocks make sure that the only way to progress is to inch your way through trial-and-error after trial-and-error until you simply memorise your way to victory through endless repetition. The camera constantly prioritising giving you a good look of the character's behind rather than allowing you to see what you're actually shooting at doesn't help.

And this is why I can't recommend it at all.

Being lost and clueless in a maze-like samey environment I can handle. Smashing my head on tough puzzles I can handle. Managing a limited inventory and saving system I can handle. But losing half an hour of progress AGAIN because of yet ANOTHER bs slasher ambush out of nowhere FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS SESSION is taking a bit too much piss for my liking.

Frankly, as a 33-year-old with a family, a house, and commitments, I don't have the time for that.

I guess what I'm saying is, I can handle either the systematic care of the limited saves and inventory, OR the bs enemies gangbanging you to death out of nowhere every few steps, but not both at the same time. And I have trouble imagining how one might.

For players who aren't already well-experienced in both PuyoPuyo and Tetris, this game will make Dark Souls feel like a visual novel, and that's without touching the online multiplayer.

10/10 would get hopelessly pulverized by what is supposed to be lower-mid-level AI again.

A delightful addition to the Portal franchise, a lovingly crafted pack of puzzles that expands on the original formula with the addition of a third portal that lets you travel between two different timelines. Very challenging, but never unfair, it's just as long as it needs to be, and with a decent story that hits the right tone, to boot.

I had to squeeze my brain hard, but the times I was having the most trouble weren't due to the puzzle itself being too hard, but rather to me having poor observational skills: all it took was for me to notice an element in the room I hadn't noticed before, and Bob's your uncle I'd find the solution.

Games like this show indie developers achieve amazing things when they have a clear idea of what their game's central focus should be, and put all their efforts around serving that one main point.

Haven is a game about a couple in love, for couples in love (though it can be single-player, it shines when played with your SO; there's both a hetero option and two gay options available); a couple eloping away from an authoritarian system which would deny their love and build a nest of their own away from everybody, finding in each other the strenght to deal with the adversities that come with it.

The more the game's focal point is well done, the easier it is to forgive the minor flaws in "peripheral" systems. Who cares if the combat system is a bit clunky and unintuitive, when the characters are so charming and adorable? Who cares if the lore a bit simplistic, if the plot is made so intriguing by your emotional involvement with the characters? Who cares if the character models are a bit lacking, when the anime-style art is so delightful? Who cares if the controls can be a bit imprecise at times, when skating across such a beautiful alien world exploring for food, background story and various asides is so damn fun? Who cares if the game gets a bit samey towards the end, if there are so many fun little scenes and dialogues to be found by tasting new food, interacting with objects picked up around the planet, and so on?

It's just so freaking nice. A simple and well-done feel-good game.

Once again, Lucas Pope shows the gaming industry that you don't need fancy graphics or wide open worlds with billions of chores to engage and move, you just need a simple but solid gameplay concept that tells an engaging story by itself.

A deductive detective game that will have you pay attention to background details, words, accents, maps, roles, faces and relationships in order to fill in the cursed story of an abandoned ship.

It has only one major flaw: you can only fully experience it once. So savour it.

Il seguito vero e proprio di To The Moon, dopo due "mini-interquel" tutt'altro che non interessanti, riprende esattamente la formula di To The Moon, ovvero i nostri due adorabili dottori (Rosaline e Watts) che fanno visita a un paziente in fin di vita che ha chiesto i servizi della Sigmund Corp. L'interesse della trama si articola quindi sui due fronti: sulla trama verticale, ovvero la storia del paziente Colin e il mistero di quale sia il suo rimpianto, e su quella orizzontale, ovvero le vicende dei due protagonisti e il mistero di cosa stia facendo dietro le quinte Watts e perché (su cui la fanbase si sta sbizzarrendo in una miriade di teorie). E su entrambi i fronti, Finding Paradise si rivela pari se non superiore a To The Moon.

La storia della vita di Colin ha colpito molto duro. Kan R. Gao è un maestro nel creare un'atmosfera di malinconia agrodolce con colonne sonore semplici ma efficacissime, e anche nel dare emotività ed espressività ai personaggi nonostante le animazioni paucipixellose semplicissime, ma è proprio la scrittura della storia, il modo "orbitale" in cui viene presentata, i temi che va a toccare, che mi hanno fatto ritrovare in lacrime alla fine di una sessione di tre ore di gioco dalla quale non riuscivo a staccarmi. Principalmente, perché quei temi mi sono molto vicini; potrei paragonarli ad aspetti di altre opere a me molto care, come Aria o K-On!. Ma anche perché i due-tre colpi di scena che si susseguono verso il finale sono eccellenti nel loro risultare sufficientemente inaspettati pur essendo sufficientemente preparati da poter essere ragionevolmente intuiti in anticipo.

Poi dal punto di vista del gameplay c'è poco da dire: nonostante il motore di RPG Maker e l'atteggiamento da adventure game punta-e-clicca, Finding Paradise è praticamente una kinetic visual novel in cui l'apporto del giocatore è quasi nullo. Se questa cosa vi infastidisce, c'è poco da fare. Se no, davvero, date una possibilità a questa serie, perché sono giochi di emozioni forti, pensieri belli, e musica magica.

Inaca's art deserves better than this redundant, hastily-written trite.
Sakura games have hardly even been much to brag about in terms of writing, but this one sunk even lower, with even repetitions, orthographical and syntactical errors abounding throughout. The characters are somewhat charming, granted, and Inaca's art is truly a pleasure to look at, but... I can't find in this game that extra something beyond that, that I found in Beach or Swim Club.

In a way, I'd call CS:GO a perfect competitive multiplayer game.

On the one hand, it's got all the subleties and complexities and skill requirements that the twitchy, ultra-serious, ultra-competitive demographic seem to like so much.
On the other, it's also straightforward and varied enough that you can boot it, play a couple of casual games away from said demographic, and go to bed; which makes it perfect for people like me, who consider competitive multiplayer-only games inherently non-serious and therefore only play them to unwind when they're too tired or short on time for a proper game.

Also, it hits that sweet middle ground between old-school shooters (exciting but shalloow) and modern, "realistic" shooters (complex, but boring and pretentious)!

It's got its defects, of course. The community is ♥♥♥♥, but what competitive game's isn't? It's largely luck-based, but what online game isn't (besides Frozen Synapse)? Any hope of "gitting gud" at it requires the dedication and time investment of a second job you don't get paid for, but what competitive game doesn't, these days?

Whichever category you belong in, you can get a lot of fun out of it. Just, don't take it too seriously, alright? It really isn't worth it.

Guardian of Light was good. Really, really good. Well done puzzles and traps, simple yet engaging and customisable action, fun bosses and excellent cooperative multiplayer. Temple of Osiris took the same formula, but brought it the reasonable step forward by making it for four players. What could go wrong?

In theory, nothing. The maps are still well done, puzzles and bosses are still fun. It's still just as playable with one, two, three or four players, as the difficulty modulates itself accordingly and never feels too easy or too hard (though, of course, it's in four player co-op that the puzzle design truly shines). Even the graphics are simply spectacular.

In execution... a lot. Not only is everything I mentioned good but also sensibly inferior to its predecessor (the boss fights, in particular, are the kind of boss fight in which mobs pose a greater threat than the actual boss), not only are the controls much less fluid and precise than GoL (thanks to the isometric perspective, platforming is matter of faith and prayer), but... the glitches. So many glitches.

Glitches that, together with an unbelievable amount of lag and the weird decision of forcing the players (even online) into one screen rather than letting each move freely, make the game, paradoxically, nigh unplayable as an online co-op!

Unlike GoL, it's much more fun alone than with friends. This alone makes this game feel like a failure, given what it had set out to do; even though, by its own merits, it's still far from bad.

In short: if you liked GoL and want more go ahead and buy it, but if you're new to the serious or only want to buy one, go with GoL.

(PS: I got the game a couple of years ago in the physical, Gold Edition, which is also pretty good as special editions go, but I only got around to playing it during the Covid quarantine)

I'll admit it: I was drawn to this game for the catgirl and the "Western anime" like art style. But I can't say I was too happy with my decision.

Though the design, characters and dialogues have lots of personality (the protagonist is the kind of "American sassy" that I don't particularly enjoy, but she certainly is likeable and interesting enough), the plot is all over the place and the gameplay is nothing to write home about. A generic platformer with uninteresting, button-mashing combat, with a lot of exploration but a monotonous and confusing level design that certainly doesn't facilitate it or encourage it.

As a whole it works fine, in fact I would never call it "bad", quite the opposite, I just found it... boring. Yes, it mainly bored me. It bored me enough to suppress my usual completionist instincts (no way I'm playing through the whole thing two more times, once for the collectibles and grinding and once for the speedrun), something that much longer, much worse games couldn't achieve.